Blog:Management today

I have, I am sure, directed readers in the past to the excellent financial website www.cantos.com. It's free to register and you get a range of interviews from leading players in industrial sectors around the world.

This week the website published a special beverage feature. As well as grouping interviews with the CEOs of S&N, SABMiller and W&D following their recent results, the website has also talked to the two beverage analysts Ian Shackleton, of CSFB, and Ralf Knabe, of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, to get their views on 2003 and some hints at the issues in 2004.

Shackleton focuses on the European beer market in the interview and points out his concerns in the sector, in particular flat volumes in Europe and a lack of marketing spend from the leading players. Interestingly, though, he points to another challenge - the number of new senior managers that have come into the sector - as a positive.

"It’s interesting that we’ve seen a number of new managements come into quite a few of the beverage companies, the beer companies in Europe: Scottish & Newcastle would be one, for example. Interbrew would be another. And so there are some quite big challenges facing new managements. Now, it’s interesting that both the managements that have come into those companies have come from outside the beer industry, and that probably introduces new blood into an industry where perhaps, historically, there’s been far too much inbred management, which has not contributed to a good performing culture," Shackleton says.

Funnily enough, this was an issue we too highlighted in a feature in January by Ben Cooper. It's worth reading the two slightly different takes on the matter.